The proposed hurricane model evaluation and improvement effort is envisioned as a multi-stage project that includes several iterative phases. The initial stage begins with an in-depth inter-comparison of model and observational hurricane air-sea fields. This particular region of the storm will be analyzed first since it is believed that existing air-sea observations can adequately describe the mean and asymmetric state associated with this region of the hurricane (i.e. wave numbers 0/1). As such, properly scaled analyses derived from operational model output should enable a realistic and reasonably accurate assessment of model performance (relative to observations) as it relates to this critically important region of the storm. The specifics associated with “phase I” of this effort will include operational runs from 2011 using HWRF 3.2 output in addition to buoy observations collected at the same time and physical location. Multi-storm, composite air-sea analyses will also be presented comparing HWRF 3.2 fields with observations from the Tropical Cyclone Buoy Database (Cione et al. 2000, Cione and Uhlhorn 2003). In addition to analyses evaluating current model air-sea performance, a more general discussion of the goals, methodology and possible next steps forward associated with the proposed model evaluation and improvement effort will also be presented.